Jena Griswold reflects on time in Estes Park

For Jena Griswold (D-CO), coming home for the holidays has given her a moment to reflect on her path to becoming the next Secretary of State of Colorado. Griswold said she owes a great deal to her hometown of Estes Park and the community that helped her over the years.

"It was really the community lifting me up that has enabled me to run and I guess that's where I get my values from," Griswold said.

Griswold, like many in the valley, grew up working class. Her mother worked two jobs, the family needing food assistance from time to time. In her early teens, she began working part-time jobs all over Estes Park. She recalled holding positions in food service at the old post-office cafe on West Riverside Drive and in retail for the Twisted Pine.

She named Paula Steige as one of the first people who believed in her, adding that she and the Rotary Club of Estes Park were instrumental in sending her to Argentina for a 10-month exchange program. This experience, Griswold said, enabled her to learn Spanish and become a more competitive candidate for college.

It was a huge deal for Griswold to become the first in her family to attend a four-year college, then law school. Like many post-graduates, she is still paying on her student loans. Growing up in rural Colorado, where the elk population is larger than the human population, made her a viable candidate for Secretary of State, she joked.

"A lot of those values inspired me to run for office," she said. "But they also made it possible to connect with people across the state."

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Her story became intertwined with the message to voters she championed on the campaign trail: that she would help level out the playing field for all Coloradans. Griswold admitted that sharing her story with millions of voters was really hard.

"It's like, 'Oh, people don't care about my story,"' she said. "But they do. They do care."

She noted that it wasn't easy to ask for donations or for volunteers to give their time. But her perspective flipped when she saw that her story and platform resonated with voters. Griswold said she looks forward to giving back to all Coloradans when sworn into office, like when she helped bring back hundreds of millions of dollars to northern Colorado with bipartisan support when the 2013 flood hit. This was while serving as the Director of John Hickenlooper's DC Office.

"It was really personal," she said. "We were out of touch with my mom for, I think it was four or five days. After Estes Park came back online, we live in the canyon and the canyon still was down. I remember calling someone from town who happens to be an undocumented immigrant that has been in the community for the last 20 years and asking, 'Hey can you go find my mom?' and he did."

When she made it to Estes Park, she found the destruction devastating but said that seeing the community come together to help each other, feed each other, celebrate the little things with each other during a time of turbulence was touching.

Griswold is the first Democrat to be elected Secretary of State of Colorado in nearly 60 years and the first woman ever to be so. It's fitting that she ran for this particular office, as it deals primarily with the issues businesses face. She said she and her core leadership team will be looking at how rural places like Estes Park have different needs than places like Denver.

"When we're thinking about election access," she said. "Making sure that we don't have one-size fits all approach. When we're talking about campaign finance reform which is of huge value to me and a huge motivator. Campaign finance reform is about evening the playing field so people don't have to be billionaires or be backed by billionaires to participate in our democracy. Making sure that people's voices are heard and not just special interest."

It's the value of community and hard work that she learned from her time in Estes Park, she said, that makes her want to strive for equal access to necessary resources for all Coloradans.

"It is a different perspective and I hope to bring those values to statewide leadership," she said.

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